About Ourselves.
--A friend in Hanover writes us a letter in which he complains or our publishing the plans of our Generals, thereby betraying them to the enemy, &c.--This is not the first time we have been charged with the same offence. We take occasion to say that all, and singular, such charges are altogether without foundation. It is very seldom that we ever have it in our power to be guilty of the imputed offence, were we disposed to do so. Neither the Generals, nor the Department, nor anybody that has any right to know, is in the habit of communicating with us, touching secrets connected with the war. That such secrets have sometimes leaked out, is probably true; but that they have been divulged through our aid and connivance, is not the fact. Almost all the intelligence respecting our plans which we have ever published, has been copied from the New York Herald, and has been known to the Yankees long before it has come to our ears. If our correspondent will look over the back numbers of the Dispatch once more, he will see that we have never, in a single instance, published any original intelligence which could by any possibility interfere with any of our plans. When other papers publish things of the kind, we sometimes copy them; and why not, since they have already become known to the whole world? Our correspondent says, ‘"I know that Gen. Scott and other Federal officers have said that they needed no spies so long as they can get the Dispatch."’ If old Scott said any such thing he lied like the dirty old dog we always suspected him to be and that no man now doubts he is. It is of a piece with his assertion that he knew ‘"every hog-path in Virginia"’--of a piece with his rattlesnake stories — of a piece with the ridiculous gabble about himself and his knowledge and performances in which he habitually indulges, which his toadies call conversation, and which always made us believe it impossible for him to be a great General, in spite of the reputation he has won from the exertions of others — for we hold that no man who is a fool in conversation can be great in anything else, and he is certainly the most consummate fool we ever heard talk, or rather gabble. He never got any information from this paper which he might not have obtained from the New York Herald before the number of this paper containing it was published.With regard to certain matters in the South to which our correspondent alludes, and which he charges us with having made public, if he will look over the number of the paper upon which he founds the charge, he will see that he does us injustice. We there expressly designate the source from which the intelligence is derived. We republish the very article from the Southern paper in which it is contained. It was very improper to publish it at all. But the mischief had been done, the Yankees had the information before we republished it, and therefore the republication by us was perfectly innocent. How the Yankees generally get their information, we do not know. It certainly can do no harm to republish what they have once published. Assuredly information touching our affairs is as safe in the hands of our own people as it is in the possession of the Yankees.
It is no new thing for us to be saddled with the offences of other people. Every indiscreet paragraph — every improper hint — every item of intelligence, which ought not to be divulged, but which finds its way into the newspapers, is straightway imputed to us. We are tired of bearing the burthen of other men's sins, and we ask, as a simple act of justice, that our accusers will take the trouble to examine the evidence before they make the charge. They will always find that when any thing appears in this paper which ought not to be published, it appears as an extract from some other journal.
